We seem to have moved from the Ice Age into the monsoon season in very short order. After our excellent sessions at the Somerford Common sites of the 3rd and 10th of January, the next two sessions had to be cancelled because of the wet weather. Last Wednesday was particularly frustrating: we arrived on site but, although forecast to be at zero, warming through the morning, when we arrived on site it was -7oC and it failed to warm at all. For Saturday it forecast to be wet on three of the usual suspects (Met Office, Meteo and Weather.com) but dry on just one (xcweather). I told the team to have their phones on at 6:30 and I would check the actual weather, as the site is within 2km of my home, and confirm or cancel. I went outside at 6:20 and it was wet, cold and miserable, so I cancelled. Back to bed, woke up at 9:30: sunshine, no wind, lots of swearing!
With this week looking wet all week and beyond, Tuesday was the only available day with a chance of getting out. There were warnings about the wind, but we decided to risk it and see how it turned out. I decided to head to Red Lodge, as we have had some good catches there recently. On Friday I went out and topped up the feeders at every one of my ringing sites. When I arrived on site at 7:15 this morning, the feeders had been emptied, so I was hopeful of a good haul. I topped them up whilst waiting for the team to arrive. The team today comprised Laura, Miranda, Ellie and Pete.
We set the usual nets and tried an extra two, just in case. Suffice to say, we could have not bothered with them: they didn’t catch a single bird!
Given how completely the feeders in ride 3 were emptied in such a short time, I was surprised that it did not start catching until the nets had been open for over an hour. In fact, given that the last two sessions there had produced about 30 birds an hour, today it was a mere 10 birds per hour! It did mean that we didn’t have the hectic sessions that we have had recently. Also, it meant that we weren’t pecked to bits by Blue Tits, so that was one benefit. The downside was that there wasn’t much variety in a relatively small catch.
Not that it was all bad: we had our first Treecreeper of the year:
We caught and ringed another Marsh Tit: that is three caught in the three Braydon Forest sessions this year! We have also recaptured another nine individual Marsh Tits as well. A good start to the year in the Braydon Forest for this red-listed species.
The list for the morning was: Treecreeper 1; Blue Tit 16(6); Great Tit 3(5) Coal Tit 1(2); Marsh Tit 1(1); Redwing 1. Totals: 23 birds ringed from 9 species and 14 birds retrapped from 4 species, making 37 birds processed from 9 species.
So, not the most exciting catch. The Redwing means that the only woodland site left that needs one for this winter is Ravensroost and, weather permitting, we will be there on Saturday (the forecast does not fill me with confidence).
Unfortunately, at about 10:45 the wind got much stronger and consistently so, so we extracted the last birds and closed the nets. Once we had processed them we took down, packed away and left sit by just after 11:30.
Ringing In The Braydon Forest & Beyond 